johnofjack

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• Commented on Italian jurors convict U.S. student of murder
  Unless you suggest that a foreigner should get a special treatment from the law? I can't speak for anyone in this thread, but from what I've seen and heard, it's apparently not an uncommon feeling in the U.S. I was...
• Commented on Bhopal, 25 years later
  This post goes nicely with the Copenhagen post to present the question of when unregulated markets actually become crimes against humanity....
• Commented on Obama acid
  Use this and you might believe Obama is on the left....
• Commented on Jesus on clothes iron
  Now, why wouldn't you want the spirit of Christ keeping your clothes wrinkle-free? ("Out, wrinkles! The power of Christ compels you! The power of Christ compels you!")...
• Commented on Boing Boing Gift Guide 2009: Kids! (part 1/6)
  I finally caught up with The Secret Science Alliance and thought it was a good read--smart, fun, & funny. ABC3D is very cleverly done.... Tomie DePaola had a popup book out this year too, which was as clever but much...
• Commented on California to enact energy-saving mandates for HDTVs in 2011
  Regulated businesses displeased, predict dire consequences. News at 10....
• Commented on SAME we can believe in
  At some point after the election, some crafty alien managed to slip one of those pods into Obama's bedroom. Or maybe he just doesn't really believe what he pretended to, and has little intention of making most of the changes...
• Commented on The Strain, by Guillermo Del Toro and Chuck Hogan
  Aside from the weaknesses mentioned above, it's also lazily plotted and poorly written. Del Toro and Hogan start us off with (and leave us with) rote two-dimensional characters, then pile on one clumsy bit of foreshadowing after another, sauntering through...
• Commented on Comic about Ada Lovelace and Charles Babbage
  A "differene" engine, huh? I've never heard of one of those. It nags at me, as a staunch defender of comics, that a couple of the best ones I've read have misspellings in them (MLK, Torso). And this one, which...
• Commented on OUTRAGE: documentary outs anti-gay politicians who are secretly gay
  I've seen the film and I'm not sure it does much more than out closeted bigots (I've seen a few films since and have grown fuzzy on the details). That said, I see no problem with outing closeted politicians who...
• Commented on The Jet-Propelled Couch: true story of a physicist who thought he was a science fiction hero on another planet
  Why wouldn't they have been able to fire him? I wonder if (with the era, supposed location, and possible security concerns) the patient might have been one of the scientists on the Manhattan Project. Unfortunately I don't know 1930s sci-fi...
• Commented on Michelangelo's The Torment of St. Anthony
  Goatse has been around longer than I thought....
• Commented on Game uses fun as incentive to solve hard chip-design problems
  They came up with this neat idea, hoped to get a lot of online participation, and implemented it in Java? Was there something about this game that made it impossible to implement in Flash?...
• Commented on Pick The Perp
  For some reason, the "expired license" perps are almost always the best-dressed people in the lineup. I guessed almost all the murderers by looking for the people with the deadest eyes. On the whole, though, I did just barely better...
• Commented on Obama Shoes
  Unfortunately with these shoes on you can only take a few steps toward a goal before reversing course....
• Commented on US refuses to let jet into its airspace because it is carrying a journalist who criticizes US foreign policy
  "Hernando Calvo Ospina has written articles about the United States involvement in Latin America, and is currently writing a book about he CIA." Well if he's not in favor of torture, rendition, drug trafficking, assassination, destabilization of select democratic governments,...
• Commented on Painting of teens partying with Morrissey
  It's actually Henry Spencer....
• Commented on British cops identify 200 schoolchildren as potential terrorists
  And somehow it's never considered an extremist belief that the government should snoop on the private lives of everyday citizens....
• Commented on 15-year-old girl beaten by sheriff's deputy
  Xopher, I thought that was a lift from Johnson but I'd read it about 15 years ago. On looking it up I find that it's actually a perversion of Johnson: "You may abuse a tragedy, though you cannot write one....
• Commented on 15-year-old girl beaten by sheriff's deputy
  Brother Provisional, you don't have to be a carpenter to point out a broken chair. Maybe you'll have more luck as an apologist on sites where people think less....
• Commented on Obama's Obsessions, Illustrated by Fosta
  Obama's shoes....
• Commented on Susie Bright reads Thurber's version of a "The Night Before Christmas," in the Hemingway Manner
  Far too many dialogue attributions to be a Hemingway ... I remember in more than one work having to pencil in character initials in long exchanges; one of them had over 20 without any "he said" "she said" after the...
• Commented on Doctor finds foot growing in brain of infant
  Link's borked. 'via' link shows the story to be at http://www.thedenverchannel.com/health/18297954/detail.html...
• Commented on Xeni's Movie reviews on Fancast, ct'd: KOYAANISQATSI
  Worth noting that when people are introduced in small groups or alone, as the primary focus, it's a different experience entirely: there's a mix of emotions accompanying the footage of the woman who looks at the camera, smiling, her smile...
• Commented on A photograph of America's new president.
  #25: Apparently he read and quite liked /The Pet Goat/....
• Commented on Election Eve
  The voting machine companies got most of their contracts because of the HAVA Act, which passed thanks to the 2000 elections debacle. It's hard for me to imagine a company (and a company supposedly in the information security business, no...
• Commented on Election Eve
  What grade is Katie in? Far enough along to know what apostrophes are for? What about her teacher? Edwatkins: Given that Diebold also manufactures ATMs, all of which issue receipts, it's hard to imagine that they didn't think of an...
• Commented on $20 kit produces trillions of universes
  In this multiple universes theory, does the universe fork every time a nonhuman creature observes or interacts with something? What are all these other universes created from? Where does the energy come from? I am fascinated by your theories and...
• Commented on New Yorker Film Festival: The 5 Scariest Movies Ever?
  The Changeling has kind of a lousy beginning, but it always scares the hell out of me when the main character is trying to sleep and the banging noise starts up. And of course there's the stair scene ... if...
• Commented on Heinlein's fan-mail solution
  Stephen King uses that same "has to choose between writing to fans or writing fiction" line, as I found out in middle school....